Leon Panetta and the Wrath of Hyper Partisans

To truly understand how remarkable the pick of Leon Panetta is for CIA chief, we should examine the first choice of Barack Obama for CIA Chief, John Brennan. Here Brennan's quick recent biography.

CEO of The Analysis Corporation
Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA)
Interim director, National Counterterrorism Center[5]
Director, Terrorist Threat Integration Center
Deputy Executive Director, CIA
Chief of Staff to Director of Central Intelligence, CIA
Chief of Station, Middle East, CIA (1996 - 1999)
Executive Assistant to the Deputy
Director of Central Intelligence, CIA
Deputy Director, Office of Near
Eastern and South Asian Analysis, CIA
Daily Intelligence Briefer at the White House, CIA
Deputy Division Chief, Office of Near Eastern and South
Asian Analysis, CIA
Chief of Analysis, DCI's Counterterrorism Center, CIA
Middle East Specialist and Terrorism Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
Political Officer, U.S. Embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Department of State
Career Trainee, Directorate of Operations, CIA.

Generally, when an indivdual is touted and withdrawn from a particular political post, they are replaced with someone of relatively equal qualifications. Usually individuals are withdrawn because of some sort of personal problem that makes them no longer viable politically. I don't think anyone can look at Brennan's resume and say he wasn't qualified to be CIA Chief. In fact, when Brennan's name was first floated there was little controversy anywhere. The only controversy came from far left blogs like Daily Kos.

President-elect Barack Obama is sending conflicting signals on whether he intends to change the bankrupt culture of Washington's intelligence community and to introduce genuine reform to the Central Intelligence Agency. . . .

(He) has placed the intelligence transition process in the hands of two senior cronies of former CIA Director George J. Tenet: John O. Brennan and Jami A. Miscik, who were actively engaged in implementing and defending the CIA's corrupt activities during the Bush presidency. (Mr. Brennan was also an active defender of the illegal program of warrantless eavesdropping, implemented at the National Security Agency under the leadership of Mr. Hayden, then director of NSA. .

Obama ran as the anti Bush, dismissing nearly all Bush policies. With regards to intelligence, this meant a total rejection of rendition, harsh interrogation, and the terrorist surveillance program. Of course, the problem with rejecting all of Bush's intelligence policies over the last eight years is that it also disqualifies just about anyone in intelligence. It isn't as though there is a plethora of candidates with decades of intelligence experience that just so happened to take the last eight years off. The far left laid down the guantlet on anyone related to any Bush intelligence policies. By appeasing the far left on Brennan, Obama was left with few candidates.

What's puzzling about Obama's capitulation here is that no one can properly say that he has generally capitulated to the far left on his cabinet appointments. The economic team looks more like a Republican team. Furthermore, he has kept on Robert Gates, one of the architects of the surge, as Defense Secretary. To understand just what the far left wants look at this list of candidates one progressive hoped to see in Obama's cabinet.

Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winner in economics and a critic of corporate globalization. He should be Treasury Secretary.

Senator Russ Feingold is a champion of civil liberties. He should be Attorney General.
Robert Greenstein is head of Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He would make a much better OMB director.

Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, would be a tremendous Secretary of Labor.

And if Obama really wanted change, if he really wanted to honor progressives who backed him early on and then did the grunt work against McCain, he’d nominate Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of State.

Clearly, Obama hasn't selected his cabinet in general to the desire of the far left. So, why did Obama capitulate to the far left on the CIA? There is only one of two reasons. First, Obama saw anyone tied to any current CIA program as a battle he couldn't afford politically. Second, he doesn't see the CIA as altogether important and so it was a battle he was unwilling to wage. The first seems unlikely. There's nothing the far left hates more than current Iraq policy and yet he kept on Gates. If it's the second, that is scary. If Obama doesn't view the CIA is altogether important and so he is willing to appoint someone wholly unqualified in order to avoid a political fight, that spells doom for the GWOT. Obama himself has no experience in intelligence. He won't know that intelligence is lacking until it is too late. By then, Americans will be dead.